


living again

by keyshrine



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 09:39:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5962636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyshrine/pseuds/keyshrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astra wakes up in glass walls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	living again

**Author's Note:**

> astra died???? when did that happen???? i don't think that's what happened and seeing as none of you have absolutely no proof that it did this is what ACTUALLY happens after astra gets stabbed.
> 
> i feel like i took so many liberties in this fic. feel free to count them should you find any of them. the tally: a lot
> 
> but i don't care! astra lives! that's all that matters!

Astra wakes up in glass walls.

Or, rather, surrounded by them, and placed on a flat surface beneath a dozen glowing yellow lights that make her breath just that much lighter. When she breathes in, it hurts, and when she breathes out, it hurts equally so; which is odd in itself, because she does not _hurt._ She is not _supposed_ to hurt. This is Earth, and Earth's yellow sun enables her to do most things, absolutely, without hurting.

She remembers something, when she closes her eyes; it comes in flashes with each sluggish blink. Pain, sharp and slicing through her chest. The sound of her own gasping. A glowing green blade. And when she closes her eyes for the last time—Kara, hunched over her, eyes wide and sad and shocked, tears on her cheeks. Golden hair. _Astra, I have to tell you—when I was under the Black Mercy...you were there._

_As your enemy._

_As my family._ It's like an echo, again and again, resounding back, bouncing off her skull.

_As my family._

That is the most vivid memory she has of recent events. _As my family,_ and then nothing; nothing past that. Just darkness, an unending stretch of unknown blackness that had swallowed her whole and left her empty and unaware.

And then.

And then: she wakes with a choked gasp that burns in her lungs and is forced out, equally heavily, and then she is heaving and coughing, arching her back, trying to stop this pain but only making it worse.

It is not a beautiful, slow awakening that comes with no pain. It is something that hurts so deeply and suddenly that it steals her breath from her.

And no one comes for her.

 _No_ —that is wrong. No one comes for her: that is what she expects.

This, however, is what she gets: a hand in hers. Blue, red—golden hair, a familiar scent, the gentle beeping of something all around her, and a voice, “Aunt Astra.”

Astra does not know when she begins to cry, and does not know when she stops; she only knows that it hurts, yes, but Kara is here, and perhaps she is dreaming – no, perhaps she is dead, and this is what comes afterwards, an imaginary life, rewritten, with imaginary visions of people she'd once known (perhaps Non and Alura will arrive soon, too) but she does not care. Cannot care.

Kara is here. Dead or not, she would not trade this for anything.

“I'm so glad you are alright, little one,” she tries to say, but she fails—what comes out is a mangled, garbled thing that Kara hastens to quiet immediately.

“Shh. Don't talk. You just have to...you just have to...relax, and...and get better.” Distantly, Astra thinks of how strange it is for a drop of water to land on her cheek; it isn't raining.

When she forces herself to look at Kara, instead of drifting away again (she will admit this: she is too afraid to, too afraid to sleep again and know nothing and wake up and be alone), her niece's face is wet.

She is crying.

They are both crying. Astra closes her eyes. “My little one,” she whispers, and manages it this time.

Kara sobs.

Astra thinks that she could, too, but then she is drifting again, eyes fluttering shut.

She wants to say _no,_ stubbornly, she wants to pull back, she wants to see Kara again.

But she is so tired.

 

—

 

In the following days, weeks, months, she is taken from one place to another; transferred from the D.E.O's hands to Kara's, transferred from the glass walls and the dozens of armed humans who glare at her suspiciously and keep her under Kryponite lights only once she's recovered fully to an apartment that is warm and full and bright. 

Once she has proven she is worthy of their trust, naturally. That alone takes months, but it seems like longer; she sleeps beneath green lights for days and days that seem to stretch on for so much longer. She rests sluggishly, waking at the slightest noise, feeling a heavy sort of unease inside of her that makes her mind feel like cotton and her bones feel like steel, weighing her down. That is what the Kryponite does to her, but that is the price to pay. She has made her choice.

( _Kara._ Kara is her choice. Kara saved her. _As my family._ They can have that again. They will have that again. She betrays Non, she betrays all that she believes in – for Kara, for Kara, for Kara.)

She develops a sort of routine in this time; she wakes in the morning, exercises, paces the length of her cell, lets the exhaustion and burning ache of this exercise seep into her. She would not feel this way in any other place, under any other lights, but this is not any other place and these are not any other lights. Kara visits her almost daily, sits by her cell; sometimes they talk and sometimes they do not, but Kara is there, and Kara does not look at her like—

Like she is a ruiner, a destroyer of things, something that sets fire to all things good and breaks it down little by little, brittle things crumbling under her fingertips. Like she had once looked at Astra, what seemed like so long ago but had not even been a full Earth year, had not even been more than a few months, at that.

Something has changed.

No.

 _Everything_ has changed. Simultaneously, it feels as though nothing has changed because she is still in a cell, and she is still suffering for the sake of these humans' comfort, and Kara is trying—

She _knows_ Kara is trying. Whenever she enters, she immediately moves to tone down the lights; that is the first thing she always does, until it's barely an uncomfortable prick at the base of Astra's spine, at the nape of her neck, a lighter thing than usual in her mind. But still there. Still...enough.

Kara is trying and Kara comes and visits every day and Kara speaks with her and they press their hands to either side of the walls containing Astra and pretend that they can feel the warmth of each other's hands against each other, but they do not.

But she is not freed. She is still here.

If Non were here, he would look at her in that cold, arrogant way of his – the way that spoke volumes without him ever having to say anything at all. _I told you,_ it would say, _these humans are not to be trusted, and you allowed them to capture you, you surrendered, we have been together for so long and working on this for so long and we are so close and you surrendered. Traitor._

She dreams of Non—she does, repetitively, almost always, whenever she sleeps. He does not ever say anything in those dreams; he only watches her, but the disappointment and the anger is so vivid in his eyes that it burns, and she wakes up gasping.

They had not married for love, had not married out of love, but somewhere along the way, they had begun to love each other. Not in the way that they perhaps should; not wholly, not fully, not heavy with soft touches in the night, curled up against each other, keeping their mouths close.

But they had loved each other, and she had betrayed him. (Indirectly so, but he would still see it as a betrayal; Non is all blacks and whites, no grays, never grays. She had not surrendered: she had nearly been killed, and then she had been taken, and then she had woken, and then. And then.)

That, she knew, was not a mistake that Non would ever forgive, and to try and rectify it—even if she could, even if she wanted...it would not end well.

She is not trusted by the humans and she would not be trusted by Non again.

But Kara is not human.

And there is hope still.

 

—

 

On the sixteenth day of the fourth month of her unorthodox capture, the door to her cell swings open. She wakes with a start, gaze immediately fixating on the familiar man in the doorway. The Martian in his false-human form jerks his head impatiently, and for a moment she's too disoriented to do anything but lay there, staring at him; then, she stands slowly, and steps forward. He watches her every step, and she pauses there in front of him, waiting for—

She doesn't know _what_ she's waiting for, exactly, but something inside of her fears to go any further, as though this is some sort of trap; or perhaps a joke, one poorly made at her expense by the humans.

“Well?” Hank Henshaw encourages impatiently, and steps aside.

 

—

 

“Hi,” Kara greets nervously at the door, steps aside to let her in like the Martian had stepped aside to let her out; her niece is smiling, and there's something so bright about it that it almost hurts Astra. _As my family,_ she thinks to herself, like a reminder, remembering those words so vividly and clearly. Under the force that was the Black Mercy, Kara's dreams did not take form of Astra bearing down at her, hurting, angry, cruel—she dreamt of _before,_ of Astra content, of them all alive and content, and...

She had been a part of that. That is what is difficult to believe; she had not been the enemy, she had been the ally, the friend, the _family._

So; she will remind herself of this again and again, gladly, no matter how much it sweetly hurts.

“Hello, little one,” she murmurs softly in return, stares around the interior of Kara's home. It's bright and warm, full of furniture and photos framed in wood and glass.

There are no green lights.

“I'm glad you're here,” Kara says beside her, and something in Astra swells to overbearing proportions.

It, Astra thinks, is love.

She turns, cups Kara's face with both of her hands and presses a kiss to her niece's forehead; she brings her in, afterwards, curling her arms around Kara, palms held flat to the center of her niece's back, stroking over the space between shoulder blades. 

“As am I, Kara,” she whispers into golden hair, and Kara trembles in her hold, but holds on ever tighter.

—

 

She becomes accustomed to many things over the next fortnight; things such as no longer being a prisoner, and then things like Alexandra. Alexandra is a constant in Kara's life and so Astra reminds herself, repeatedly even, that Alexandra will be a constant in _her_ life, as well, no matter how irritating the human is sometimes. (Not even sometimes: _often,_ constant, like the ticking of a clock or the beating of a heart.) Alexandra is brave; that alone is something to admire, her courage and her strength, her determination.

Most of all, _this_ is what stands out to Astra: Alexandra's willingness to do whatever it takes to protect Kara. Even from Astra, who has absolutely no intention to ever hurt her niece again, and yet Alexandra glares at her and tenses every time she comes too near, and Kara is the unfortunate one in the middle, who looks between them as though expecting them to start a fight then and there in the very heart of her home.

Astra has no intention of doing so — but she cannot speak for Alexandra.

She remembers the way the Kryptonite blade had slid into her, burning white-hot and more painful than anything that she'd ever experienced; she knows precisely who had done it. Alexandra, the culprit. It occurs to Astra more than once that Alexandra is so tense around her because of that very fact. It is a reasonable conclusion to come to, to think that Astra would plan on retaliating.

Or telling Kara.

She knows exactly what of those two options is crueler, and she plans to take no action.

She tells Alexandra this, once, when they are left alone in the apartment; again, Astra the prisoner and Alexandra the guard, or so she supposes Alexandra likes to think.

"It is better for your relationship, is it not," Astra says, looks at Alexandra, "that Kara does not know what you did. I do not plan to tell her, I assure you. I would not ever think of doing that. She loves you. You are her family." She thinks of, _if you are her sister and I am her aunt, what does that make us?_ She supposes Alexandra was right: _nothing._ Blood bonded her and Kara. A life together bonded Kara and Alexandra. And nothing at all bonded her and Alexandra.

Alexandra says nothing. Astra looks away, stands from the sofa that they share. "Your secret is safe. Goodnight, Alexandra."

"Don't call me that," Alexandra says, before Astra is out of sight completely.

Astra tilts her head, turns. "Why not? It is your name."

Alexandra stares at her, eyes narrowed. "Call me Agent Danvers," she says eventually, ends the odd stretch of silence. "Or Alex. Or nothing at all. Nothing would be preferable, actually. It would be preferable if you didn't even _talk_ to me."

Astra blinks, calm. "Very well," she says, turns again, "Goodnight, Agent Danvers."

 

—

 

The first time she visits CatCo, she is taken aback by it all. Humans are herded into minuscule cage-like spaces in a wide room, like bovines herded into a pen to be slaughtered; they flood in and out of elevators, talking on cellular devices busily and shoving their ways past her when she doesn't move quick enough. She allows it. Kara would be particularly displeased if she killed a human in her workplace. (Or a human anywhere.) It is not so much a willing visit as she is coerced into it, for Alexandra is busy and does not trust her alone and Kara is here, and so she goes willingly.

She pauses by a large statue of a pink feline, or what looks vaguely like one; she reaches out, smooths a hand over it experimentally. It's hard, smooth like marble, and by far the strangest and clearly most useless structure that she's ever seen.

"Um," someone says behind her, "Don't...don't, uh, touch that, please. Like... _really,_ don't touch that."

Astra blinks, turns slowly. The man in front of her looks very much like he wants to turn around, himself, and flee, though she doesn't quite understand why until he says, "You're...you're, um, you're Kara's aunt, aren't you?"

"Yes."

He pales even further, a feat that Astra had not thought possible. "...Oh. Um. Right. She's, um...she's out getting coffee for Miss Grant, but if you want to wait for her you can just...sit down...anywhere...and don't touch anything."

She frowns, gestures to the pink feline. "Is this very prized?"

"Very. And if Miss Grant catches you touching it, well...that's...not something you want."

"Miss Grant?" Astra repeats, curiously, tilts her head a little.

The human gestures widely forward, and her gaze follows that sweep of his arm into the room at the front. It has glass walls. A woman is sitting behind a desk, head lowered, glasses perched on her nose. The sun makes the light tints of her hair shimmer. "Cat Grant. She's, um, Kara's boss."

Astra thinks a moment, and remembers. Kara mentions her often, in passing conversation; talk of retrieving things for this Cat Grant, like she's some sort of... _servant._

"I see. And you are...?"

"Winn. Um. Winn Schott. I'm Kara's...friend." Under his gaze, he seems to shrink nervously, taking a step backwards.

Astra arches a brow. "You fear me."

"What? No, I just...er. Um. Okay, a little."

Astra glances away; it's meant to be a sort of dismissal, but from her peripheral vision she can see him still, lingering strangely. "I will wait for my niece to return, then," she says decisively, the second attempt at dismissal. Verbal, this time.

Winn Schott takes it well; he nods hurriedly and scurries away.

Like a rat.

Astra turns her gaze back to the pink feline.

There are many things on Earth that she doesn't understand, she decides. This happens to be one of them.

 

—

 

"Alura," Astra says, breath stolen from her; the name of her sister escapes in a gasp that she chokes on, though she knows very well that it is _fake._ This image is a falsity. It does not have Alura's emotions, does not have her mind, does not have her love or her blood or her flesh. When she reaches out and touches it, her hand goes right through as though it's nothing more than air—and it is. It is nothing more than air, nothing more than something empty in an already empty space. 

"Hello, Astra," The A.I. says, stares blankly at her, or rather through her, waiting for a demand, for a question.

Kara and Alexandra stand together behind her, patient and quiet and soft, waiting for whatever might come. Astra feels as though something is blocking her throat, making it difficult to breathe or swallow or do anything at all but stand there and gaze at this mockery of her long-dead sister. She should not feel this way; she should not feel so sad and angry, should not think of a mere A.I. as a mockery. It is not some purposeful taunt, an attempt at stirring a whirlpool of emotion to the surface; it is merely a holographic figure.

Nothing more.

But Astra cannot help but stare at her, and stare and stare, merely taking it in; this A.I. could not possibly ever be mistaken for something _real,_ but it looks so much like Alura all at the same time. It has her hair, her eyes, her voice. Astra thinks of how Kara must have reacted—likely in precisely the same way she's reacting to it now, with awe and hurt, with a kind of stupid shock. The thought hurts her. She hurts for herself, and she hurts for Kara. And she _longs_ for Alura, so strongly and painfully that it feels like a hand has closed around her heart.

"Alura," she says again, broken. She wants to scream, perhaps yell at Kara and Alexandra for showing her this at all; this is not something she wants to see, not ever something she'd wanted to see, but...she _does,_ she does see it, she has seen it and now she wants to stay here, to press this image into her mind until it's permanent. The last time she had seen Alura was when her sister had sent her away, to Fort Rozz.

This is not her sister.

"Would you like to ask me a question?" the A.I. asks calmly. It doesn't blink.

Astra opens her mouth— _speak again,_ she wants to say, but instead a sob is torn from the depths of her, startlingly loud in the silence, and her vision blurs. "I love you," she says instead, voice breaking, wavering where she stands. Her collapse is imminent, surely; it feels that way, like she will cave in on herself, like seeing Alura again, no matter what form it may be in, is ruining her. Slowly. Surely.

The A.I. says nothing, and that is enough for Astra. She swallows another sob and then another until she feels stable enough to speak. "Turn it off," she orders shakily, does not look away from the figure in front of her despite how false it is, how cruel it is of her to allow herself to look at this poorly made imitation and think _Alura._

Kara obeys, or perhaps Alexandra obeys; all she knows is that the A.I. fades, and then there is nothing of Alura left to look at.

She feels like a child wiping her tears away, wetness smudged on the back of her hand; she straightens, then. Holds her head high and pushes her shoulders back just the slightest amount and then she turns, does not look at her niece or Alexandra. She looks ahead, instead; beyond them, over them, anywhere but their faces directly. She might break again otherwise. "I am finished here," she says.

As they're leaving, Kara slips her hand quietly into hers and says nothing.

(It was a lie, though. _I am finished here._ It was a lie. She returns a week later, alone.

She does not speak. Alura—Alura, A.I., hologram, fake, imitation, copy—does not speak. She only stares instead, memorizes every inch of the half-faded figure in front of her on the platform, curls her limbs around her stomach and squeezes her eyes shut, to keep from crying. It doesn't work. "Tell me of Krypton," she whispers; a command instead of a question. She wants to hear Alura's voice. If she closes her eyes and concentrate, perhaps it really _will_ begin to sound like Alura, like Alura is there and alive and whole and speaking to her. 

The hologram talks for hours. That is how Alexandra finds her, later, as Alura's copy is describing in close detail the structure of Krypton's buildings. It is pathetic. It would be very easy to use this as leverage, as some sort of verbal ammunition against her. But Alexandra says nothing; she holds out a hand, instead, and Astra takes it though she doesn't need to, stands, watches the A.I. fade, thinks of a new beginning. 

A better beginning.)


End file.
